SEEING so many women working in agronomy may have been her original inspiration for starting a career in the field, but helping farmers to feed the world was what led Tiarna Kanny to knowing it was the career for her.
Having grown up in the northern agricultural region and splitting her time between a cattle, sheep and cropping farm at Walkaway and a station at Yalgoo, Ms Kanny knew how lucky she was to be blessed with the space and freedom the country offers.
While a lot of people finish high school and have no idea what they want to do with their lives, at 15 years of age this teenager wanted to be an agronomist and made the decision to attend boarding school at the Western Australian College of Agriculture, Morawa, for years 11 and 12.
"To start off, agronomy seemed like a field within agriculture where there were a lot of women involved and a lot of female support," Ms Kanny said.
"That was over five years ago, so it's a little different now, but at the time it seemed like there wasn't the same level of the publicised women in ag movement and it felt like there were certain roles which women seemed to be in and agronomy was one of them.
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"As time went on and I learned it was about helping farmers reach their goals and assisting them to feed the world, I became really passionate about it and I knew it really was what I wanted to do."
Leaving high school, not only did Ms Kanny know exactly what she wanted to do, but she was presented with the perfect opportunity to start her career with a role as a trainee agronomist with Great Northern Rural Services in Geraldton.
Ms Kanny worked full-time for the company while undertaking a Bachelor of Agriculture through Charles Sturt University part-time.
It was a full-on role and she had to learn a lot quickly, but luckily Ms Kanny had a mentor who was, and still is, very good to her.
"It was very confronting as a 17-year-old and there was a lot of information to absorb," she said.
"It took me a while to figure out that you're not going to know everything straight away, or even by your third or fifth year.
"I realised it was going to take me at least 10 years until I was on the same level as all of the really well established and well respected agros and ultimately it just comes down to experience."
After three and a half years with Great Northern Rural Services, it was time for a new challenge and Ms Kanny became an agronomist with Nutrien Ag Solutions at Lake King and Newdegate, a move she made just a week before the initial COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.
Throwing herself into the deep end, the role was very different, particularly given the varying soil types in the areas that she was covering.
The lockdown was an additional challenge and with no sport or events on the calendar, Ms Kanny became creative to meet new people and started a photography business on the side.
"I was living remotely alone and being there by myself really took a toll," she said.
"There was no real working from home because you can't do your job without seeing anyone and while there was often a lot of interaction with the husbands, it was very hard to meet women, so photography was a great way to do that once lockdown ended.
"I mostly do family portraits, specialising in taking photos on their farm and in their own environment because the connection to the land is so special, especially when there's multiple generations involved."
Ms Kanny really enjoyed being a part of the Lake King and Newdegate communities and under different circumstances she might have stayed longer, however after just over 12 months, it was time to move on.
Heading back to the north, she completed seeding for Viridis Ag at Eneabba and was on her last run in 2021 when she was offered a role with the Mingenew Irwin Group.
For more than a year she has been the grower group's research and development program manager, a role which sees her co-ordinate the entire process right from the application stage, all the way through to communicating and extending trial results.
"Sometimes agronomy can be a bit of a thankless task, especially when you're just starting out, as the only time anything is your fault is when it goes wrong and you often don't get any of the credit when things are going well," Ms Kanny said.
"Whereas in this job, I get to be involved the whole way through - from a farmer bringing us a problem, to finding an application that works and then seeing that put into practice.
"There are some incredibly innovative farmers in the area who I have been able to build some really strong relationships with and because of that I want to see my projects through from start to finish, so the minimum is two years but a lot of them are longer."
Those connections and relationships are part of what Ms Kanny believes sets the agricultural industry apart.
"Western Australia is so small and when you work in agriculture it's even smaller, so there's connections everywhere," she said.
"WA growers are so innovative and often they don't even realise it which is why I love being involved in research.
"There's so many exciting developments happening and it's great to be a part of it by showing what our farmers can do for the world."